The present invention relates to the shipment of goods, for example by common carrier, and to the processing of documents, such as waybills, bills of lading, or delivery receipts, generated in the shipment transactions.
Commercial carriers of goods, such as railroads, trucking companies, air freight services, or ocean-going shipping companies, generate large quantities of paper documents to record and process the many individual shipments handled each day. A particular carrier will generally serve diverse customers, which impose varied document-handling demands on the carrier. The entities dealing with a carrier may vary, for example, from an individual desiring to ship a single package, to a large company with bulk shipments, or even another commercial carrier such as a trucking company delivering to a railroad or ocean-going vessel. The freight industry also includes specialized intermediary businesses such as freight consolidators and intermodal retailers, which facilitate the shipping of customers' goods on common carriers. The entity desiring to transport an article by means of a commercial carrier is generally referred to herein as the shipper. The intended recipient of that article from the commercial carrier is generally referred to herein as the consignee.
The nature and magnitude of the paper-handling problem may be appreciated by reference to the operations of a trucking company. A trucking company may handle as many as 40-50,000 shipping transactions per day. To handle the large number of shipments with diverse origins and destinations, some trucking companies maintain a plurality of local freight terminals having localized service areas for the pickup and delivery of shipments from or to shippers and consignees. The local terminals may transport shipments to or receive shipments from a smaller number of regional consolidation centers, which may be pictured as forming the hubs of regional wheels while the associated local terminals form the spokes of the wheels. The consolidation centers themselves may also receive and deliver shipments directly from and to shippers and consignees.
A party desiring to make a shipment may bring the goods to a local terminal, or may call upon the services of a local transportation company to pick up the shipment and deliver it to the carrier's local terminal, or the carrier itself may pick up the shipment at the shipper's facility. The various packages dropped off at the terminal are loaded onto a truck either for local delivery or for transportation to the regional consolidation center. There the packages may be transloaded to other trucks for shipment to other local terminals or transloaded to long-haul trucks and transshipped over great distances to other consolidation centers. At additional consolidation centers the load is again transloaded to other trucks going out to the various destination terminals fed by these consolidation centers. The various packages are then delivered to the intended consignees, or the consignees themselves arrange to pick up the shipments at the destination terminal.
The shipment of goods in the above manner is accompanied by a large amount of paperwork. If the shipping party is a commercial entity, then the shipment would typically be made pursuant to a purchase order to the shipper from the consignee. When the goods are picked up at the shipping company, the truck driver typically receives a bill of lading identifying the package or packages being shipped. At the local freight terminal, the truck driver delivers a copy of the bill of lading to a clerk to begin the paper trail.
To assist in keeping track of the many thousands of shipments per day, each shipment is assigned a unique number. In some cases, the truck drivers are provided with pre-printed stickers with a progressive sequence of numbers printed on them, referred to generally as PRO numbers. A sufficient number of duplicate stickers with the same PRO number are printed so that when the goods are first picked up, the truck driver may apply a sticker to the individual packages making up the shipment and to multiple copies of the bill of lading. In some cases, the PRO number is assigned by the trucking company's computer at the time that shipment information is first entered. In either case the PRO number is used to index and identify the goods and the accompanying documents as they make their way through the system.
In a typical computer-controlled accounting and billing system a clerk, who may be located at the local freight terminal, keys the PRO number and other information from the bill of lading at a computer terminal for entry into the company's main computer, which is typically located at a remote site such as the company headquarters. The data from the bill of lading are also used to determine the route, the necessary transhipments and the like, which the shipment will follow to its destination terminal.
When the shipment is delivered to the consignee, or picked up at the destination terminal by the consignee, the consignee is presented with a delivery receipt for signature. The executed delivery receipt provides proof that the shipment was completed. Sometimes the lading freight bill (i.e., with freight charges indicated) is used for this purpose; usually, however, a separate receipt is provided similar in form to the shipment invoice, but without the charges shown. When shipment is complete, a bill is sent to the payor (who may be the shipper or the consignee) either from the company's central billing office or from the freight terminal serving the shipper or consignee.
Such a system is subject to a number of drawbacks and problems, including the following: There are a large number of shipments per day and an even larger number of documents which must be tracked at several different sites. There is a tendency for documents in the field to be subjected to rough handling as they are passed from shipper to trucker to clerk to trucker, etc., such that often the documents are mutilated and partially obscured. A large clerical labor force is needed just to handle the paperwork, which adds significantly to the cost of shipment. Sufficient records must be kept of shipments en route such that misdirected or lost shipments can always be traced. It is critical that the information from the bill of lading always be entered accurately into the company's computer. Without accurate data entry, errors will appear in the company's billing and record-keeping, and it may become difficult to trace lost shipments. However, the initial data entry is typically done by the clerical staff at remote freight terminals, who have little accountability for errors and where close supervision is difficult. Many of the documents used in the shipment process also have legal significance. For example, the signed bill of lading represents a contract between the shipper and the carrier. The signed delivery receipt or lading freight bill constitutes proof of performance under the delivery contract with the carrier and may also constitute proof of acceptance under the original purchase order pursuant to which the goods were shipped. Many times the shippers routinely want a copy of the signed delivery receipt for their own records. And, equally as typical, many payors require that the invoice from the carrier be accompanied by a copy of the bill of lading or executed delivery receipt.
These problems are not limited to the trucking industry, but arise in analogous forms with the shipment of goods by other modes as well.